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Washington, Ill. —
Considering the circumstances — somewhere between 12 and 18 inches of snow — Washington administrators believe the operation of cleaning up and keeping citizens safe during the snow storm Monday through Wednesday, went rather well.
“Realistically, it went as well as could have been expected,” said Deputy Chief of Police Don Volk.
Volk said the biggest deterrent to getting the streets plowed even quicker was the same thing they spent the better part of Thursday dealing with — abandoned vehicles in and near the roads.
“(Wednesday) morning they had three or four on Cummings Lane they had to tow out of the snow drifts just so they could get the (snow) plows down,” Volk said. “There are still only two out of the three lanes that are open (on Cummings Lane).”
City Administrator Bob Morris said Cruger Road may have been the worst road.
“We had some very serious drifting because of the high wind — Cruger Road (was) in really bad condition,” Morris said. “It (was) open to traffic, but in some places it (was) only wide enough for one car.”
Volk said one area of concern was that a part of the Rolling Meadows North subdivision lost power from sometime Tuesday evening until Wednesday morning.
“We lined up contingency places for warming centers: the fire department and upstairs (of the police station),” Volk said. “We had the contingency plan set up if we needed to shelter people, but (Ameren Illinois) got on it pretty quick.”
Morris said in these situations the city’s top priorities always include digging out the fire hydrants around town in case the fire department needed them and increasing visibility in certain trouble areas.
“Fire hydrants are key, as well as knocking down some of the very tall piles of snow that (were) impeding visibility at intersections,” Morris said.
Morris said while things “never go as you hope,” it could have been much worse.
“It was a tough 36 hours,” Morris said. “We did get everything plowed and opened I’d say early evening (Wednesday). You can never get there as quickly as you want to be in terms of clearing streets and getting people back to normal daily life.”
As pleased as Morris was, he said the situation still left room for improvement.
“Always — we could always do better,” Morris said. “It usually does come back to equipment and how we’re going to actually put resources out there to do the job. I have a lot of faith in our public services crew. They have a lot of experience in how to go about it.”
Considering the circumstances — somewhere between 12 and 18 inches of snow — Washington administrators believe the operation of cleaning up and keeping citizens safe during the snow storm Monday through Wednesday, went rather well.
“Realistically, it went as well as could have been expected,” said Deputy Chief of Police Don Volk.
Volk said the biggest deterrent to getting the streets plowed even quicker was the same thing they spent the better part of Thursday dealing with — abandoned vehicles in and near the roads.
“(Wednesday) morning they had three or four on Cummings Lane they had to tow out of the snow drifts just so they could get the (snow) plows down,” Volk said. “There are still only two out of the three lanes that are open (on Cummings Lane).”
City Administrator Bob Morris said Cruger Road may have been the worst road.
“We had some very serious drifting because of the high wind — Cruger Road (was) in really bad condition,” Morris said. “It (was) open to traffic, but in some places it (was) only wide enough for one car.”
Volk said one area of concern was that a part of the Rolling Meadows North subdivision lost power from sometime Tuesday evening until Wednesday morning.
“We lined up contingency places for warming centers: the fire department and upstairs (of the police station),” Volk said. “We had the contingency plan set up if we needed to shelter people, but (Ameren Illinois) got on it pretty quick.”
Morris said in these situations the city’s top priorities always include digging out the fire hydrants around town in case the fire department needed them and increasing visibility in certain trouble areas.
“Fire hydrants are key, as well as knocking down some of the very tall piles of snow that (were) impeding visibility at intersections,” Morris said.
Morris said while things “never go as you hope,” it could have been much worse.
“It was a tough 36 hours,” Morris said. “We did get everything plowed and opened I’d say early evening (Wednesday). You can never get there as quickly as you want to be in terms of clearing streets and getting people back to normal daily life.”
As pleased as Morris was, he said the situation still left room for improvement.
“Always — we could always do better,” Morris said. “It usually does come back to equipment and how we’re going to actually put resources out there to do the job. I have a lot of faith in our public services crew. They have a lot of experience in how to go about it.”
Keeping the shelves stocked
For only the second time in 53 years, Lindy’s Downtown Market in Washington closed its doors due to weather-related issues.
Although a whole day without business certainly couldn’t help money-wise, Jim Linsley said it wasn’t worth putting his employees or the public in a dangerous situation just to go and get a few groceries.
“I couldn’t see staying open,” Linsley said. “You do it as a public safety to other people ... because if they hear that we are open, then they are going to try and get here to get whatever they may need.”
Linsley said that despite the lull in business post-snow storm, the weather impact on Sunday and Monday, when people were preparing for some kind of post-Armageddon world, more than made up for it.
“You could tell that people were well aware that this was the real deal,” Linsley said. “We found a weather impact (on business) from Sunday and then tripled our business (compared to a normal) Monday and a 50 percent increase on Tuesday (early), but we also closed early because we wanted to get our employees home.”
He said he heard other places ran out of the staples such as eggs, milk and bread, but Linsley said despite having to run to Peoria for a quick milk run, they were prepared for the worst, but it is not as easy as moving delivery schedules up or doubling an order.
“I can’t call and say, ‘Hey, send me another truck, I think there’s another snow storm coming,” Linsley said. “What if I order all of that and it doesn’t happen? I look at it as you do the best you can with what you’ve got to work with.”
Finding a guardian angel in a snow storm
Maggie Hickman’s commute between work in West Peoria and home in Washington of more than 11 years was a little different than the typical workday Feb. 1. After arriving at work at 10 a.m., with the impending snow storm coming Hickman assumed her boss would let everyone off of work by 1 p.m. She said her boss refused.
“I told him I have to go home,” Hickman said. “He said, ‘No one has the authority to go home; you can’t go home.’”
Hickman was forced to wait until her shift ended around 6 p.m. and then try to navigate the snow-ladened roads.
“I didn’t think I was going to get home, and sure enough, I didn’t,” Hickman said. “I got stuck on Cummings Lane. I couldn’t drive any further.”
This is the point in the story where Hickman said her guardian angel appeared with his four-wheel drive beauty.
“His name is Josh; he’s from Pekin and that’s all I know,” Hickman said. “He told me to get in his truck and he would give me a ride home.”
Hickman said Josh had also picked up another girl stranded by the storm and was taking her home in Washington as well. She said she couldn’t
be more appreciative of Josh’s kindness.
“He saved my life,” Hickman said. “I’ve discovered this more often than not, people are very helpful.”
The logistics and future plans
Just like any snow storm, the biggest obstacle to overcome is always transportation, said Deputy Chief of Police Don Volk.
“We’ve got three four-wheel drive vehicles and even those Explorers were having some difficulty getting around in the really deep stuff,” Volk said.
He said because they knew the storm was coming for a few days, the department was able to make as many preparations for it as possible.
“We had a couple of people that lived out of town make arrangements to stay in town with people ... a couple of people at the Sleep Inn so they would be accessible and wouldn’t have to try and drive in this,” Volk said. “We brought in part-time people to ride with the officers as two-man cars, so that if officers got stuck or needed assistance, we had the extra bodies.”
One other thing that Volk said slowed down the clearing process was people “just dumping their cars in the middle of the street.”
“I think a lot of people didn’t think it was going to get as bad as it did,” Volk said. “They did the best they could, but ... (then we had) to play catch-up getting the cars moved.”
Morris said although this snow storm is over, the planning for future snow storms begins some time next week when he will sit down with Chief of Police Jim Kuchenbecker and other city officials to see what went as planned and what the city can improve.
Currently, the city does contract out to other snow plow companies to clear parking lots and alleys in town. Morris said that really helps expedite the clearing process.
He said several obstacles, including the shear amount and weight of the snow and plows breaking down or being used to aid the police all contributed to the removal process being slower than normal — but then again, this snow was not normal by any definition of the word.
“We did not have all six plows plowing streets concurrently for the duration,” Morris said. “That’s not unusual; plowing snow is really hard on the equipment with the weight and depth of the snow — streets we’d normally clear with two passes of the plow took four.”
Although the process was slower than he would have liked, Morris said it is not simply corrected by adding more snow plows.
“It’s clearly always better to have more equipment, but like most cities, do you gear up and spend the money for a severe snow that is probably going to happen once a decade — is that a wise expenditure of public money or not?” Morris said.
All in all, Morris said the snow storm of 2011 can be used to make the city of Washington’s operations become quicker and more efficient.
“Clearly all of us would have liked to clear residential streets much earlier than we got done (Wednesday around 7 p.m.),” Morris said. “Every one of these is a learning experience.”
